sugar spun debris
by Domenic
Summary: AU. Possibilities with Toffee, Mewnipendance Day, and other things in the cosmos. [UPDATE: iii. rubber stamp monster, part 2.]
1. i

**Title: sugar spun debris**

 **Fandom: Star Versus the Forces of Evil**

 **Summary: AU. Possibilities with Toffee, Mewnipendance Day, and other things in the cosmos.**

 **A/N: This is written post-"Mewnipendance Day."**

 **Disclaimer: I own nothing related to Star Versus the Forces of Evil.**

i.

"Gimme a break..." Marco muttered into his soda as—Francis? Fritz?—publicly gave the middle finger to—Sarah? Suzie?—while flying by on his skateboard. Marco wasn't very familiar with either of those two at school, other than knowing they were a couple, and overhearing some recent gossip about them having a huge tiff. Apparently big enough to have one of them give the other the finger in front of everyone at the cafeteria during lunch.

For her part, Sarah Or Suzie was gearing up to throw her milk carton at Francis Or Fritz—up until Star popped up, waving her own middle finger around.

"Hi Frankie!" She beamed, even as Apparently Frankie skateboarded into a vending machine out of surprise, and Sarah Or Suzie cackled in delight. While the rest of their classmates either laughed or complimented Star over this, Marco took a moment to not sound like he was totally freaking out before taking the princess aside.

"Star, that was—" He took another calming breath. "You have no idea what Frankie did, do you?"

"Uh, waving?" The princess tried, while opening a soda can with her bare teeth and Marco bit back a response to _that_ ; one thing at a time.

"He gave the middle finger, and that's—on Earth, it's a _very_ rude gesture," Marco said, determined to sound authorative and not the least bit awe-stricken as Star successfully opened the drink with her bare teeth and without anything going horribly wrong.

"Ohhhh," Star said, eyes registering as she wiped an arm over her mouth, drying the soda off and making Marco scramble for a napkin dispenser. "Yeah, never heard of that on Mewni."

After that, the rest of the lunch passed sorta uneventfully, though Star would occasionally squint at her middle finger and wiggle it around.

###

 _Years and years and years ago_

Second-born Princess Hazelnut Butterfly stomped past the monsters' cages and Mewni soldiers, fuming at her older sister. She had only said the cages were too small to pack so many monsters into each of them, they could be distributed better; her sister was wrong to interpret it as weakness and inappropriate softness on her part, she wasn't _weak_ , she didn't pity these beasts...

They were so freakin' _loud_ , for instance, what was there to pity? They were losing, they were prisoners, the rest of their kin either being annihilated or fleeing the Mewni army; but they were apparently too stupid to realize this as they caused such a _racket_ , jutting their claws and whatever awful appendages they had through the bars, shaking the bars, roaring and hissing and shouting obscenities and other foul and harsh language through magic-reinforced steel. Couldn't her _perfect_ sister figure out a silencing charm for them?

Something with six eyes in each of its three heads actually spat at her.

Hazelnut whirled around, wiping the disgusting matter off her cheek, which was already flushed with black clubs. Oh no, that wouldn't do, count to ten, breathe deep and long, if her sister caught her blushing like this, she would not hear the end of it—

Then her eyes fell on a pale gray-green claw. Its wrist was wrapped in bandages, and below it was a long black sleeve, frayed at the edges. That claw stretched out of the bars, with one finger extended. _Middle_ finger extended.

That _little_...such audacity, how dare—

Hazelnut barked out orders, triggered the cages' security charm, and the cage zapped its prisoners. Their furious roars turned pained, until it was over, and from the heap they had fallen into there was moaning and a few wheezy curses.

The other cages' fervor only increased, and Hazelnut screamed for them to shut up too, and soon they were zapped, same pattern of pained roars then moaning and groaning. Her ears had a reprieve, at least.

Cheeks still blushing madly, black clubs hot on her face, Hazelnut continued to give orders.

"Guards, pull out the monster who dared show me such _disrespect_ , such rude _insult_ —yes, that one, his wrist was wrapped in bandages just like that, his sleeves were long, black— _out_ , out with him, _at my feet_!"

Despite being just zapped, some of the other monsters tried to intervene and protect their comrade. They were no match for her soldiers, and they dragged out a—how embarassing, a monster slightly _smaller_ than her, pulling him out by the dark feathers on his head and throwing him to the ground.

When he tried to rise, a soldier shoved him back into the dirt, though he landed on his knees. When he made another attempt, an armored foot slammed onto his tail; another armored hand grabbed his head's feathers again, twisting them back and threatening to pull them out of the ties that held them back into a short scruffy thing that barely counted as a ponytail. The monster hissed through his snout, but made no other sound, or move, just glaring and waiting. His yellow eyes would dart to the soldiers' weapons every so often.

Hazelnut's eyes narrowed at him; his reptilian snout was shorter than what she'd seen on fully grown monsters of his kind, and he was just...generally scrawnier and smaller. Her lip curled; it was one of the monster spawn. She guessed he was maybe thirteen, fourteen, maybe just a year or two younger than she. The monsters had their young fighting too, like Mewni's forces.

"Grab his claws, show them to me," the second princess snarled, mind racing and her rage pounding. The other cages were resuming their noisy rage again, recovering from the magically-induced electrical shock.

Finally the creature spoke, snarling himself, and his voice did...sound like just a boy's, a thirteen-year-old's, a fourteen-year-old's. " _ **Enough**_ _, stop touching me_!"

Hazelnut's eyes went up and down the young monster as he struggled with her guards. Both of his long black sleeves were torn; one had actually been ripped to the elbow, leaving his scaly forearm exposed, except for the bandages wrapped around it. Apparently both his arms had bandages. The sleeve that had been below that offensive middle finger had only been frayed. His trousers were more intact, again only frayed at the bottom where the clawed feet came out, free of shoes, though one foot was also bandaged. He was covered in grime and dirt and other things that spoke further of the violence he'd probably caused and probably endured.

Finally the soldiers twisted the monster's hands before her, palms up. Another soldier held his snout closed tight, and above that she could see his yellow eyes glaring up at her, full of rage...

Hazelnut's fingers gently played against the monster's palms, mumbling and grumbling under her breath. The second princess was quietly surprised that his scales weren't slimy, or freezing cold, but rather warm; and she was startled by the way the monster's skin trembled and twitched at her touch. "This, this is the one," she hissed, tapping the hand with the bandaged wrist, with the long dark sleeve mostly intact, only frayed. "This is the one that showed disrespect."

She scowled, then abruptly stood up and stomped to a war table, shoving maps and other apparatus off it. "Here, put him here, just lay his head down—and you, give me that—"

The soldier obediently handed her his ax.

The monsters in the cage that had housed the rude one grew louder, as did the other cages. (Did one of those beasts actually shout for coffee? What insane fools.)

The soldiers dragged the monster spawn forward, and the young beast had resumed his struggles with a new feverish energy. Pointless; they still slammed him down against the table, and Hazelnut herself grabbed his head, the feathers on it, and kept it pressed down. She hefted the ax with her other hand. Her soldiers held the rest of him down, thin shoulders and all.

The monster spawn's head was pressed sideways against the table, so that his small snout was still exposed. Though she could really feel his trembling now—it had increased—and his tail wildly whipped back and forth, his voice was pretty level, if rather strained, and hate-filled.

"You—you freakin' horrible—heinous piece of _garbage_ —you're going to _**pay**_ for this." Only one of his yellow eyes was visible, and it was glaring coldly at the second princess. She stared back. "If not me, someone else is going to make you _**PAY**_ for what you did to _our_ home, _my_ _**home**_ —!"

Hazelnut pressed down harder on his head, making him choke back a groan.

She lifted the ax higher. The monster spawn still coldly glared at her. Was he going to close his eye, shouldn't he close his eye, _why won't he close his eye_ —?

The second princess' magic went wild; it changed the ax into a dagger; she shrieked, "His hand, give me his hand—no, not that one, you imbecile, _weren't you paying attention_ , the other one—!"

The correct clawed hand was before her, and she quickly slammed down the magically transformed dagger, cutting through that damned rude middle finger. (The sound and feel of bone and flesh tearing jolted through the dagger straight to her body.)

The monster spawn made a choking sound, as if shoving something down; but other than that, he was quiet. And his yellow eye had finally squeezed shut.

Snarling, she slid the knife and dismembered finger toward her, and the monster spawn slumped down further, shoulders going up and down as if he were gasping for air, breathing heavy, though his mouth remained shut. Hastily the second princess pocketed the cut finger—it was still warm—and ordered the guards to throw the monster spawn back into his cage with the others.

Then Hazelnut stomped off, keeping the stained dagger, not bothering to transform it back into an ax or return it to whoever gave it to her. She'd show her older sister, the dirty dagger and the dismembered finger, show her she wasn't weak, look what she'd done, maimed one of the monsters, made an example of him, a _weakling_ wouldn't do that!

But her pocket felt wet and soggy and disgusting, and weirdly weighted down. Surely a monster's finger couldn't be that heavy.

###

"You have some guts, kid."

"Lucky she didn't show them to us."

" _Don't_ do that again."

"Toffee—"

The only response the young monster could mount was a groan. One of the others, three-headed Mossi and Bossi and Dossi, cradled him closer.

"Toffee, don't fret, or—just—Junebug, she'll fix you right up, she's just ripping off cloth for bandages and getting the water ready," the three said in unison. Their touch and soothing voice was some comfort.

And Toffee _was_ thankful, overall; losing a finger was preferable to losing his life, and he'd seen other monsters lose either that or larger appendages during the invasion. But still it felt like his hand was on fire (and he knew that sensation, he'd gotten a few burns from the blazes the Mewni soldiers had ignited to destroy their villages), and it just felt very strange.

"Now Toffee, give me your hand—"

 _grab his claws, show them to me, his hand, give me his hand grab his claws_ _ **GIVE ME HIS HAND**_

Toffee drew into himself, tail curling in tighter, pressing his maimed hand closer to his chest. He shook his head, eyes squeezed shut, growling.

"Toffee, it's just me—"

"Damn, kid's getting delirious..."

"He's just freaked out—"

"He'll have to pull it together."

Toffee curled in tighter, hiding his face more, and wishing everyone would be quiet. He could barely identify who was speaking; what felt like fire devouring his hand drove out most names from his recollection.

"He literally just lost his finger minutes ago and he's not even of age—"

"Old enough to fight, too much coddling won't help—"

"You know know he and the other kids shouldn't even _be_ here if things weren't so dire—"

"But they _are_ —"

" _ **Shut up**_ you two! Just let the doc work..."

Three calming claws ran through the crest feathers on Toffee's head.

"—it's me, Junebug, it's the healer—Toffee, we need to clean your hand, then bandage it—just let me help you, I promise to make it better—"

Taking a shaky breath and opening his eyes, Toffee gave up his hand.

The Mewni guards had given them bread and swamp water. With that and scraps of clothing ripped off, Junebug cleaned and bandaged Toffee's hand while the others told him ridiculous stories for distraction. It worked for a time, but when the night arrived and everyone quieted for sleep, a dull ache and phantom weirdness returned to Toffee's maimed hand, keeping him awake. The young monster scratched at the new bandages around his hand and the wrapped up nub where his middle finger had been, and was grateful he still had a chance to take revenge on Mewni.

(Toffee knew Mewni's second princess had shown him some mercy, whatever her intentions really were. Maybe she'd been scared, like the first time he'd killed a Mewman. But Mewni had frequently shown him worse, and they were going to _pay_ for that.)

###

In the kingdom of Mewni on that formerly monstrous island, the middle finger grew so taboo it practically fell out of practice and memory entirely, with only a very small few recalling it.

###

(As if Toffee could ever _forget_.)

 **A/N: Yes, I was hinting that Princess Hazelnut Butterfly is, for my purposes, a younger version of Miss Heinous. And in this fic and my headcanon, what looks like hair on Toffee is something else; he actually has something more like long feathers that can be customized/trimmed, etc. (This is completely inspired by feathered dinosaurs.)** **Part of this was inspired by WMG theories on TV Tropes.**


	2. ii

**Title: sugar spun debris**

 **Fandom: Star Versus the Forces of Evil**

 **Summary: AU. Possibilities with Toffee, Mewnipendance Day, and other things in the cosmos. [ii. rubber stamp monster, part 1.]**

 **A/N: Thank you for all the feedback and favs! I loved the season 1 finale. And I'm kinda amazed "Storm the Castle" didn't entirely make this completely AU yet. I actually feel like it encouraged some of the ideas I want to do here. ALSO, gayroyaltydraws did amazing fanart for this fic! Check it out on her tumblr under her Toffee tag.**

 **Disclaimer: I own nothing related to Star Versus the Forces of Evil.**

ii.

The ache in his hand was waking him up again. The wound was still fresh. But still, Toffee was starting to grow used to it, so that it now only half woke him up, and his exhaustion could half-drown out the dull fire in his stump of a middle finger.

It took shouting and someone pulling on his tail to get Toffee up now.

"S'whatsisit?" The fourteen-year-old mumbled, uncurling from his place on the cage floor.

"Something bad," someone—Toffee tried blinking away his grogginess—Daz, it was Daz who said that.

"There won't be anything we can _do_ , like usual—" That was Bee Dust.

Now Dossi: "Shut _**up**_."

Toffee yawned as his elders bickered and the noise level of the neighboring cages grew. The boy listlessly tugged his crest feathers out of their ponytail; it had remained intact enough to keep the feathers from tangling in the night, but still loosened enough that he needed to redo the ties.

"There must be something—"

Tying back his feathers again, working slowly due to grogginess and getting used to maneuvering with one finger less, Toffee observed and listened to the other cages. His own cagemates weren't being too forthcoming, other than taking the time to wake him up.

He saw Mewni guards walking up the line of cages, monsters in them making a racket. He heard the horrible sound of crackling electricity and monsters groaning. If their magic was zapping prisoners to incapitate them momentarily, they must be pulling out prisoners again.

" _They're taking the children_!" One of the cages screamed. Toffee guessed that it was a message being passed along the line of cages—

Toffee felt the bottom of his stomach drop, finally comprehending. He instinctively pressed himself against the bars, tail curling around his body, trying to make himself as small as possible.

Junebug climbed over the others to get to his side. "Toff, it'll be all right—"

The younger monster started shaking his head at her obvious lie and clear attempt at reassurance. Her using that diminutive nickname didn't help either, since the last time she used it, his mother had been killed.

( _first dad, then mom, one by one they left him, and still his siblings were missing, they were probably dead too_ _ **why**_ _did he keep getting left behind_ )

"Did they bother keeping records of who they threw in each cage?" Darius hissed, eight legs pensively tapping the bars.

"Looks like they're checking every damn cage, doing the usual stun-drop trick, there's no way we can hide Junior here," growled Ven, his tentacles grabbing Darius' spidery legs and keeping them from tapping the cage. " _Stop that_."

"Right, that's right," Toffee mumbled, one hand reaching up to his head, clenching his feathers, and his growing panic suddenly spiked at how _weird_ it felt, something was missing—until he remembered his maimed hand. Right. Of course. It had been only, what, a few weeks? As much as he was growing accustomed to it, it was also still horribly new, of course he'd forget once in a while _and they were coming to take him away_ — "They're gonna find me, they're gonna—"

"Toffee," Junebug said. "It'll—"

" _Please_ don't lie, it's not helping," Toffee said, trying his best to keep his voice level, but it still sounded snapped. It definitely cracked.

The insect monster shook her head. "Could be that they're just trying to reorganize us for once—separate by age group—"

Toffee's jaw clenched. It didn't sound like even she really believed it, based on the slight waver to her voice. But the younger monster refrained from pointing that out.

"Could we try lying about his age?" Mossi tried, while Bossi growled deep in her throat.

"They're doing their own checks and zapping us to do them," snapped Bossi. "They're gonna know Toffee's _young_ just by looking at him!"

Toffee began unclenching and clenching his fists, heart pounding up to his throat. Junebug began whispering rapidly to him, wrapping one of her arms around his thin shoulders.

"Tend to your injuries as much as possible," the older monster said. "Though I believe the risk of infection is behind you. But your hand—the nature of the wound—I told you before, it's likely magical scarring given the circumstances—skin may not heal over the bone, and pain may linger—"

"I hate this," Toffee whispered, his voice hoarse. The boy knew he was stating the obvious...but he normally kept the obvious buried deep down. It was just finally slipping out. Suddenly feeling light-headed probably didn't help with his attempts at control, and the sound of metal boots crunching against dirt was growing louder and louder, making his head throb.

"I know honey, I know," Junebug said, holding him closer. She gave him more instructions, until she finally said, "Okay, I need you to repeat what I just told you."

Toffee did, his voice curiously growing hollow.

"Good," the healer said. "Try to remember that. Take care of yourself, if we're...separated." Her claws gently took his face, making him look at her. "Things are—right now, things are...they're not—"

"I know," Toffee said, voice quiet.

"It won't always be this way," Junebug said, her voice suddenly growing fierce. "Things _can_ be all right again. Things change."

 _Of course they do_ , Toffee numbly thought. _Things hadn't been so...broken, before_.

"—pe," Junebug said, and Toffee blinked, realizing she was still talking. "Just don't lose hope, it's too dangerous to lose it—"

The Mewni guards came into horrible sight, and Toffee braced himself for the magically-induced electrical shock that would strike the cage next. Junebug wrapped all of her arms around him, holding him close and tight, and for a second, Toffee pretended it was his mother that held him.

Sense-wise, the electrical shocks always made it feel like the world exploded, terrible noise expanding all around Toffee and pain flooding every nerve ending until he was, well, senseless and very much incapable of resistance, just like the rest of his cagemates. And it was just—it was just a blur, the next few seconds, minutes, maybe hours, it felt like hours, waves of electrical fire still keeping him drained and burning. The boy vaguely felt tugged around—something tried to hold him back, something yanked him forward. Something tried to stick to his skin, a suction cup— _Ven's tentacle_ , a realization that almost bolted Toffee to some awareness besides the agony and exhaustion that gripped him. When he felt the suction cup rip away and the sound of metal hitting flesh and definitely Ven's pained hiss, Toffee stirred a little, feeling something hot and angry choke in his throat.

The boy grew more aware as he heard metal swing and click shut, and he felt more of a breeze, not muffled by the body mass of all his cage mates, his group, his squad, they'd been caught together, they'd at least been fortunate to have been kept together. Up until now.

Vision still hazy, Toffee started to struggle— _no, they couldn't take him, they couldn't take his squad away from him they were all he had left_ _ **they couldn't do this**_.

"Damn, tighten your hold on it—"

"Mind his tail!"

Toffee blindly clawed and bit, breathing heavily and stumbling. _They couldn't they couldn't not this too_ —first dad, then mom, ever since they died, Toffee had stayed with them: Junebug, Ven, Dossi and Bossi and Mossi, the others; and more had fallen, besides mom and dad, they'd lost more monsters over time, but they'd also found others; lose, gain, the number of members in their group fluctuating as they fought and ran and hid and survived and now Toffee was going to be one of the lost ones he didn't _want_ to be lost—

"Please," Toffee hoarsely begged, and he hated himself for saying it, even as he desperately, foolishly hoped Mewni would listen for once and show him some real mercy.

It was a stupid wish and an idiotic show of weakness, as one particularly large Mewni guard just finally heaved Toffee over his shoulder. The young monster's struggling was dying down, adrenaline and fear and anger again losing out to pain and exhaustion.

"Toffee..." Someone—Bee Dust weakly called from what had been his cage, and the boy saw some of his other cagemates manage to reach through the bars, and he found himself uselessly trying to reach for them too.

"Put me down," Toffee snarled, banging weakly on the Mewni's armor.

"June, take it easy," Toffee heard Dossi say, and he looked at the cage again, saw Junebug being helped up. She was shaking badly.

" _Put me down_!" Toffee managed to scream, and the raw emotion and volume left his throat feeling like it had been clawed through. The boy madly squirmed, until the armored shoulder beneath him bumped him up slightly, trying to readjust the grip on him—but that was enough to send another wave of pain through Toffee that paused all his efforts.

And that was it. The guards carried him further away, made just one turn and his cage, his group, whatever makeshift family he had left was out of sight. When that happened, Toffee cried out again **—** not words, nothing comprehensible, just this horrible, cracking noise that sounded like someone dying. He heard a responding cry from his out-of-sight cage, a horrible mingling noise from his group, worse in its multitude. Similar surrouned him; a horrible din of monsters, younger and older crying out for each other, as the Mewni separated them.

Toffee struggled against his captor again. Insanely, the boy thought he could still get away, if he could just get down right now, he could run back, maybe even find the key, somehow open that cage, and they could all escape together, maybe even free everyone else—

Metal snapped open, and Toffee was flung down amongst a new mass of monsters, banging his head. Metal snapped shut again before Toffee could get up, and when he did, all he could do was slam himself against the bars, along with the rest of his new cage mates. (They were around his age, _children_ , their elders had called them.) This cage didn't seem too different from what Toffee had grown used to; he was packed in with other monsters, sorely testing the cage's maximum capacity, maybe Junebug was right, maybe Mewni was just reorganzing—

Toffee saw wheels below the cage. His previous cage didn't have wheels.

" _We want_ _ **out**_!"

" _Damn it_ —"

" _Let us go_!"

That and other things were screamed out, and Toffee felt the noise coming from all sides would destroy his hearing.

Toffee tried climbing up the bars, over his new cage mates; if he could just see his group, just see Junebug and the others—

There was the sound of the security charm powering up, and before Toffee could brace himself, it struck, and the electrocution made Toffee give into his screams. And then nothing, he knew nothing more.

###

When Toffee woke up, he felt the floor beneath him move, and found everyone in the mobile cage to be much more subdued.

( _Defeated_.)

Toffee just slumped against the bars, and listlessly watched the ground and burnt trees pass by. He noted there were other cages rolling by with them, also filled with monsters around his age.

Toffee counted the other cages until his maimed hand started to ache. He drew it to his chest and began to scratch at the bandaged nub of his formerly intact middle finger. This was immediately breaking one of the instructions Junebug had taken pains to reiterate to Toffee before he'd been taken, she'd always advised him against scratching through his bandages—

Feeling increasingly hollow, Toffee realized he'd probably never hear her advise him not to scratch again. Or Ven scold him. Or Bossi or Dossi or Mossi argue. Or Bee Dust sing some strange song in the evening, or any of Daz's funny stories, or Darius' awful riddles. Like he'd never hear Mom's low chuckle, or Dad's bright laugh; or his older sister's teasing, his younger brother's questions, his younger sister's daydreams...

The hollowness sharply twisted and Toffee doubled over, head in his hands, sobbing and hyperventilating.

( _"Don't lose hope_ — _"_

what a joke.)

 **A/N: Thanks for reading, hope you enjoyed. Feedback/comments/reviews are always desired and appreciated.**


	3. iii

**Title: sugar spun debris**

 **Fandom: Star Versus the Forces of Evil**

 **Summary: AU. Possibilities with Toffee, Mewnipendance Day, and other things in the cosmos. [iii. rubber stamp monster, part 2.]**

 **A/N: Thank you for all the feedback and favs! gayroyaltydraws did more amazing fanart for this fic! Check it out on her tumblr.**

 **Disclaimer: I own nothing related to Star Versus the Forces of Evil.**

iii.

Toffee watched the Mewni soldier pull out the dimensional scissors, while most of his peers started to whisper to each other over this development. They did this until another guard banged an armored fist against their cage, rattling the bars, and they quieted down again. Toffee hadn't trusted his voice, constricted with growing fear as it was.

They'd been on the road for a few days, and their caravan of cages filled with young monsters had grown. Toffee couldn't quite understand why they had moved the cages at all if they were planning to use the dimensional scissors the whole time, unless some meeting place had been arranged, to gather everyone or the first wave of prisoners.

Toffee tried to stamp it down, but he could feel his terror increasing, and he could sense it in his cagemates. Dimensional scissors were new, something the Mewni brought over. Toffee had heard of them, had seen the Mewni use them, but had never personally been through one of the holes they cut in space. The thought of going through one now frightened him, because that had to mean travel to an entirely different dimension, and that would be so damn far from home, maybe he and the others would never even see it again...

Toffee's claws tightened around his knees, watching the Mewni soldier swing down the scissors, and the sky literally rip down, revealing a patch of torn dark against the bright pink sky of his homeland. The boy's breathing sped up as the cage neared that hole. He tried to calm himself, and quiet at least one of his fears; dimensional travel itself couldn't literally be that dangerous, given the Mewni used it and did not seem worse off for it. But still the young monster irrationally wondered how it would feel, would it make him nauseous, would it hurt.

Unthinkingly Toffee held his breath right before the cage wheeled through the portal. And going through it, there was a slight feeling of...weirdness, like his insides were weirdly pulled, but it didn't hurt, and there was no significant nausea. And it was brief; it wasn't long before the cage rolled into the rest of the dark the portal had only offered a glimpse at, and Toffee set his eyes on the alien land he and the others had been taken to.

A storm raged, though no rain dropped, and thunder didn't roar; it was just the lightning flashing across the dark sky. The land was desolate, violet-gray-blue stone as far as Toffee's eyes could see, with no shred of plant life in sight. It seemed like naturally bare stone, not a place whose trees were burnt down by fire. Other than the rocks, there were buildings that seemed equally desolate; intact, pristine even, but lacking warmth and any real color. They were huddled together, and resembled a fortress, especially with the barbed wire mounted on high surrounding walls.

The cages rolled to a stop in front of the fortress, and Toffee felt a chill to find something horribly familiar waited outside those walls, and continued to filter out: Mewni's false golems, their automatons.

As if their enchanted armored soldiers weren't enough and anything else that damned wand could summon, there had been their metal golems to contend with in the fighting. The fact that they were enemies that had tried to kill Toffee, tried to kill _and_ did succeed in killing those he cared about, helped set fire to his home—well, that would always color how he felt about the golems; but they had also simply unnerved him in an entirely new way, with their mimicry of life without _really_ being alive. They weren't just machines, they weren't just alive...they were something else in some eerie purgatory that disturbed Toffee.

Trying to observe the golems, the young monster tried to count their numbers, and see if any were...off. They looked as he had seen them before, dressed in military garb and with stitched masks, red glass eyes staring out with their fiery glow. None seemed to be glitched, which gave some comfort to Toffee. The boy had dealt with some golems that glitched, and their unpredictability always grew; either they were made vulnerable, which was a benefit, or they became more erratically dangerous, which was not, and of course it was the latter that Toffee had faced more out of the small number of glitched golems he'd tangled with.

The considerably more alive Mewni guard that had taken Toffee and his peers through the portal opened their cages, barking orders, clearly trying to keep order. Toffee thought of how the Mewni seemed so fond of overkill; here they were, vigorously trying to get him and the others to obey, as if there were a real chance of rebellion. Did they really expect them to put up a fight at this point? To what end? Where could any of them run to? They were in another damn dimension, and it looked barren except for that fortress that was clearly meant to be their new prison. There were the dimensional scissors, but those were in the guards' hands, and the chances of overpowering them to grab that tool or even covertly pickpocketing it were pretty much hopeless. Toffee and the others had not been nourished well over the brief journey, the guards not giving them enough food or drink (though frankly, it had been a long time since Toffee had felt well nourished). They were weakened by that, and also—hell, their low spirits had been palpable in the cages; Toffee knew he couldn't mount up the will to struggle at this point, and he could sense the same in his peers. Hopelessness was contagious.

So with minimal fuss and heavy exhaustion and wariness, Toffee and the other young monsters from his cage were marched through the fortress entrance into a courtyard, walls of Mewni knights and metal golems on either side. But then they saw more spill out from the other cages, and what had been vague during the journey here became clearer: some of the monsters led out of some of the other cages were far younger than Toffee, the youngest he spotted so far looked six years old.

The boy's stomach clenched uncomfortably, even as a treacherous hope started to worm its way through his mind: maybe his missing siblings were in the other cages.

Toffee tried to resist the thought; he didn't want his hopes to rise again, only to get crushed as they often were lately. The boy did receive some distraction; he felt a wave of increased unease ripple through his group, and a spark of something to shake them a little from their despair and exhaustion, for they had also seen that far younger monsters had been taken here too.

"Eyes front," one of the guards growled, but Toffee and the others kept looking back at the younger monsters, who met their eyes and watched them too.

Finally, one of the younger monsters grew very alert, her eyes growing wide. Then she shrieked across the marching line, " _ **Terrace**_!"

" _ **That's my sister**_!" One of the monsters beside Toffee screamed back, and immediately hell started breaking loose. Of course so-called Terrace scrambled to get to her sister, and of course the guards tried to hold her back; and of course Toffee and the rest of his group tried to get the guard off her; and of course the rest of the Mewni guards joined in.

Toffee saw the young monster that had recognized her older sister run forward a few steps before one of the golems had picked her up, and continued to hold her even as she shrieked and bit and clawed at it. Toffee only noticed this for a second, before getting pulled back to the fight via someone punching him across the face; the boy growled and unthinkingly struck out with his tail, hitting something metallic.

The brawl in the courtyard of the fortress continued, and Toffee knew reason was fast fleeing the vicinity. It was sorely missed, as what Toffee had calculated essentially came to pass; he and the others could not overpower the Mewni forces in their weakened state, and soon they were being beat back. Badly.

Again, typical Mewni overkill.

" _ **Enough**_!" Someone boomed from above, and the guard currently choking Toffee by the throat paused. Then he hurriedly twisted the boy around so that he had Toffee kneeling in the dirt, gasping for breath while his hands were held behind his back in a vice-like armored grip. (His maimed hand was screaming.) For a moment in between his gasps, Toffee managed to open his eyes, and glance around, finding others in situations similar to his own; Mewni forces that had been pummeling overwhelmed monsters had stopped and held them as prisoners instead.

After giving one last cough, Toffee looked up, chest heaving, looking for the voice that had kind of saved them. Two things he realized: one, he was looking through one eye, the other was well and truly swelled up by now and probably blackened like hell; two, he was looking _at_ one eye—a royal All-Seeing Eye, one of those horrible flying eyeball scouts the Mewni had used in the fighting.

 _Fantastic_ , Toffee savagely thought as that eyeball circled above, its attached Mewni royal banners fluttering.

"Any family relations will be sorted after orientation, _not_ before!" That same voice boomed through the All-Seeing Eye. "The sooner you get back in line and follow orders, the sooner your family relations can be sorted and you can all be directed to your new living quarters! Anyone with injuries too severe are to be taken to the infirmary immediately! Now go!"

There was barely any protest after this, and Toffee and the others who didn't need the infirmary were marched inside the building, under the watchful glare of the eyeball scout.

 **A/N: Thanks for reading, hope you enjoyed. Feedback/comments/reviews are always desired and appreciated. Yes, the above suspiciously sounds like St. Olga's School for Wayward Princesses and its robot guards for a reason that'll be detailed later. Extrapolating about the All-Seeing Eye here, that there was more of a story behind why it's apparently involved in Mewnipendence Day celebrations, why "it's to remind the monsters that the royal family is** _ **always**_ **watching": that there were was more than one All-Seeing eye and they were literally used as spies/scouts/surveillance tools against the monsters during the events that make up Mewnipendence Day/the Great Monster Massacre.**


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